Youngsters encouraged to vote

Reporter:

Staff reporter (Border Counties)

Tuesday 28 April 2015 11:17

YOUNG people in North Shropshire are being urged to vote in the General Election.

Two men from Oswestry, Harry Leather, 23, and Tim Bierely, 24, have set up a series of social media pages and a blog called Floreat Politica, aimed at the younger generation who may not be planning to vote next Thursday.

The two friends felt frustrated with the amount of information about the parliamentary candidates available so invited each of the five candidates to an interview and have so far spoken to Labour candidate Greame Currie and Andrea Allen for UKIP.

Harry said: “We are politics geeks and are really excited by the election, but we’ve seen that there’s a lot of young people not really interested. It’s hard to get people of our age interested.

“There’s not really one place where you can go to find out all of the information so we’re trying to provide that.”

The pair have both recently arrived back in Oswestry after a stint of travelling. Harry has been in Australia for two and a half years and Tim has been teaching in Europe.

Harry added: “We want to encourage our generation to vote and provide them with the information they need to do so.

“Politicians are targeting older people because they know the younger generation don’t typically vote, I think the highest turnout for 18 to 24-year-olds has been just 50 per cent.

“It has been hard work as there is only two of us but we’re getting quite a few hits and just really hope this helps.”